Buryat Tailgan rituals, currently practiced in Post-Soviet, post-atheist Siberia, involve making offerings to spirit masters, thereby creating relationships between humans and the landscape, regardless of the religious affiliations of the humans involved. The ritual posits and produces a cosmology in which sovereignty is immanent in the world, offering alternative perspectives on both post-humanism and ritual theory.
Justine Buck Quijada is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Wesleyan University. She is the author of Buddhists, Shamans and Soviets: Rituals of History in Post-Soviet Buryatia (Oxford 2019). Her current research focuses on the post-Soviet resurgence of shamanism in the Republic of Buryatia and the interplay between New Age shamanic circuits and indigenous practice.
Very limited in-person space is available, Room 213, Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St. George Street.
